Kirill Krupin, Business Development Manager MatchX

There are many technology companies and innovations in Berlin that have grown in number over the years. Products and solutions from the Internet of Things (IoT) as well as the blockchain and AI world are introduced into our daily lives. One of Berlin's innovators is MatchX, former Deep Tech Award winner and global company, which offers the LPWAN technology and their very own network to support others with their IoT projects. We wanted to know from Business Development Manager Kirill Krupin how the company has developed since winning the Deep Tech Award 2017, how exactly the LPWAN works and what makes Berlin the smart city of today and tomorrow.

Hi Kirill, thanks for taking the time for the interview! MatchX was one of the Deep Tech Award winners in 2017. How has your company developed ever since? 

MatchX has come a long way since our humble beginnings. Back in 2017, we were a tiny startup founded by 3 entrepreneurs united by a common idea to enhance the IoT world using cutting edge technologies such as LPWAN, AI and Blockchain. The dream was to create a global network specifically built for small devices, adding to the 4^th industrial revolution, no small feat!

Over the years, we really have evolved into a truly global company with 5 offices around the world (Berlin – HQ) and 30 employees who represent 11 countries and speak 7 languages. Such a multicultural team that’s not only creating an astonishing and creative atmosphere but also helps us better understand our customers and more successfully enter new foreign markets.

Your products are focused on supporting others with their IoT projects. How exactly does your cloud service work and what are you providing your customers?

MatchX started predominantly as a hardware company that designs and manufactures IoT devices based on LPWAN (Low-Power-Wide-Area-Network) technology, helping city councils and local business around the world to harness the power of data. Technologies such as Wi-Fi and 4G enable billions of people to stay connected but for smart cities these wireless networks are not the best choice due to their extremely high energy consumption and short range (10-20 meters compared to LPWAN’s 30+ km). The first generation of our core device - MatchX Gateway is able to cover an entire city such as Berlin using only 8-10 of our gateways, providing a cost-effective connection for billions of various sensors, starting from GPS trackers (i.e. widely used by public bicycles) to a remarkable AI camera that eliminates city parking problems.

However, despite the huge commercial success and worldwide network of distributors, we quickly realised that there is so much more out there and LPWAN itself is just one of the steps towards a sustainable future. The technology is considerably decentralised and there’s no consensus between all the IoT LPWAN. We envision a brave new world where devices would use an open-source standard to exchange data and value. Together with our strategic Blockchain arm at the MXC Foundation we aim to create a decentralized IoT economy – an ecosystem of devices, and applications that everyone can use. As a part of this initiative, we successfully released MXC Data Dash App (available in the Apple and Google Play App Stores) giving our customers more interactive and enjoyable ways to contribute data into the ecosystem, allowing anyone to build their own IoT projects. It will be the world’s first global data network based on LPWAN and Blockchain.

Another focus of yours in on Smart City and sustainable solutions. How can your solutions and solutions in general help to form more efficient and smarter cities?

MatchX may be a tech company, but our job is to delight users. Our mission is to develop concrete solutions to make cities more efficient, healthier, more liveable and cleaner. Our strategy rests on three pillars: connectivity, intelligence, and security. That’s where our three core technologies come to play, connectivity is carried out by the IoT LPWAN gateways that ensure a transferring of data from sensors to our cloud, where machine learning and AI algorithms analysing this vast amount of data enabling fast and intelligent decision making, and the last puzzle piece is blockchain that provides security and privacy. To put it simply, IoT - feels, AI -thinks, Blockchain – remembers.

I personally believe that only by collecting and processing the data in this way, we can build sustainable smart cities for a better world. The collection of data is critical for urban infrastructures and governance. The Internet of Things is at the core of data collection. powering urban policy-making.

Plenty of connected devices are sensing data across cities: in vehicles, infrastructure and buildings. Just to give you a sense of what can be achieved by our solutions: this year we released our brand new product – EdgeX – world’s first LPWAN camera that is both energy efficient and privacy compliant. The first implementation of this camera was a smart parking solution, the camera detects available parking slots and lets drivers effortlessly find a suitable parking place. It will help to solve Berlin’s traffic problem and simultaneously significantly reduces CO2 emissions.

Another exciting example is our project in New York City – Focusing on Smart Waste Management. Trash bins with pre-installed sensors collect data based on fill levels, temperature, location, and movement information of the waste containers. This information assists to optimize the garbage collection route. Drivers know exactly when and which trash bins are full and therefore need to be collected. This approach leads to significant environmental improvements: decreasing fuel consumption, reducing maintenance costs and reducing carbon emissions, and less traffic on roads is good for everyone.

What is your prediction regarding the future of Berlin as a Smart City? Do we still have a long way to go or are we on a good way?

Berlin is already a Smart City and can be rightly considered as one of the most advanced and proactive European capitals in terms of adopting new technologies. Berlin is where our Headquarters is based and the Berlin start-up tech movement is something we’re very proud to be apart of.

There’s one interesting project that I would recommend taking to all IoT enthusiasts, it’s called TEGEL PROJECT. The techno-park is going to be built at the closed Tegel Airport, Berlin. This is will be the place where science and research meet industry and commerce, where start-ups meet investors, and where everyone will be working together on solutions for the cities of tomorrow. MatchX has already applied to take part and bring our experience in building smart cities using our unrivalled LPWAN solutions.

Not only do you work with IoT and making Berlin a Smart City, you are also working on using IoT to a build a blockchain data market. What´s the state of play here? 

That’s correct! As stated earlier, we are a bunch of young, determined professionals, based in Berlin, however, we have a global scope. We have the chance to change this world and we are confident of making a positive impact in the world we all live in.

Over the past 2 months we have released the M2 Pro, it is both an LPWAN or “Device Data Network” and a Crypto miner. The M2 Pro has quickly become the highest selling IoT Miner, ever. This success has obviously allowed us to sell a significant amount of Hardware, but moreover, it allows us to proceed in covering more of the globe with LPWAN. We use the “MXC” tokenisation element to ensure “Proof Of Participation” by using this “PoP”, we are allowing everyone to benefit from this device data network, something that already covers over 100,000 square kilometres. It’s an exciting time to be on the cutting edge of Blockchain powered technology powering the next data evolution, but simply, it’s an exciting time to be alive.

MatchX uses IoT, Blockchain and AI. Can you describe how exactly you are combining these and what your future plans with all these technologies are?

In our business, we call them a “Golden Triad".  These technologies are meant to work together by nature. Undoubtedly, all three are substantial and transformational on their own, but their genuine beauty and power lie in convergence. You can think of IoT, AI, and Blockchain as interconnected organic processes. IoT is like the digital version of the nervous system. It can sense the billions of connected sensors and devices around the world and record the universe of new data. AI is the brain that not only controls the nervous system but also thinks by analysing this data, evaluates options, calculates probabilities, and makes smart decisions. And Blockchain acts as a memory for this data and processes, creating a secure storage. In the case of MatchX, the nervous system consists of LPWAN devices that allow us to extract the data, our cloud platform serves as a brain that analyses the collected data and helps businesses to make decisions based on that, a blockchain ensures transparency, security, and privacy of business processes by providing a shared, decentralized distributed ledger.

We’re witnessing an unprecedented case in our history when such breakthrough technologies that have a huge impact on business and life have emerged at the same time. And MatchX is all about to catch the wave.

How do you experience the situation regarding tech and innovations in Berlin? Do you have a large network to exchange experiences and learn from each other? And in what way is the MatchX Community part of that?

After all that’s happened in the city during the 20th century, German's capital has become a dynamic and diverse city that successfully attracts incredibly smart and driven people from all over the world. Berlin is full of entrepreneurs, this is a city that so often had nothing, and people had to learn to be creative, they had to learn to hustle. So, I say with extreme confidence, Berlin is the most attractive city for science and research. Today’s Berlin is not only the most diverse scientific and research landscape in Europe, but also a vibrant and youthful start-up hub. This is the place where innovation is born!

This year’s Deep Tech Award is just around the corner. Any tips you can give the future winners?

There are a number of extremely successful participants in the Deep Tech Award, so the winner should definitely take the time to step back and realise the significance of winning what has become a prestigious award within the Berlin Tech and Start-Up seen. My advice is simply, use the Deep Tech Award as a platform to achieve new heights, use it as a springboard to achieve even more and continue to follow your dreams.